


Meme Under the Mountain

by lembasanddebauchery (vodkaanddebauchery)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bilbo is fed up with these courtship shenanigans, Courtship, Developing Relationship, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Fluff, Gen, Growing Old Together, Headcanon, M/M, Old Age, Thorin is a stubborn shit, and inadvertently imports conkers, so that's where Kili gets it from
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3174760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkaanddebauchery/pseuds/lembasanddebauchery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Different prompts for a headcanon meme on tumblr - most of them turned into minifics, oops. </p><p>Headcanon prompts thus far are: Sleep headcanon, old age/aging headcanon, and romantic headcanon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> ☾ - sleep headcanon  
> This got angsty sorry.

In the days of his princedom, when he was just a youngling naive to the ways of the world and untouched by Dragonfire, sleep used to be one of Thorin’s great indulgences. Shut away from the echoing halls of the mountain keep his chamber was one of rest and respite, his bed - overstuffed, strewn with pillows and sumptuous furs - perhaps too fussy for a prince of the line of Durin, one who felt the singing voice of the stone in his blood. 

Dís gave him no end of mischief for it, and while Frerin didn’t exactly _stop_ her from sneaking into his chambers and battering him with down pillows, he never actively encouraged her either. Truth be told, there was not much either of them could do to stop her.   
“You sleep,” his brilliant, cruel little sister proclaimed one morning, waking him abruptly by ripping the warm layers of covers off all at once and _laughing_ while he shivered in the cold air, “all floppy and spread out, like a sea star.”   
“I do not,” Thorin grumbled, trying to pull one of the thicker blankets back to cover up. Dís held fast. Her eyes sparkled brighter than the silverwork braid clasps that glittered among her dark curls. “You were snoring. And drooling into your pillows too, I think. _Most_ ignoble.” 

After the calamity struck Thorin did not have his soft mattress, his furs, his coverlets woven of purest silk. He learned to sleep in his coat, for that is what his people did - if they were lucky enough to escape with warm clothing. Making camp in the wilds or bedding down in the inns and barns of Men, Thorin would wrap himself in his furs against the cold and slip into the deep and dreamless sleep of the exhausted with his boots on and his arms crossed tight across his chest. Rocks were his pillows, the earth his mattress. The name of Durin did not count for much when you had no birthright to claim. 

In the first gentle green days of their (likely ill-conceived) adventure, Thorin could not help but notice the way the burglar slept: Head on his lumpy pack, sprawled out so his feet and arms hung off of the scratchy woolen blankets and scuffed the ground. Even when the nights got chillier he did not immediately curl in on himself. The Hobbit did not snore like the rest of the Company. The noises he made in sleep were soft, the gentle sounds of one accustomed to having pleasant dreams.

Keeping watch through the small hours of the night, listening to the dying crackles of the Company’s campfire and the eerie noises of the night wilds, Thorin found his gaze kept returning to the burglar. Idly, he wondered as Bilbo sniffed in his sleep and rolled over, leaving a wet patch of drool on the pack, if he himself would ever be able to sleep like that again.


	2. Old Age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things remain the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ∇ -. old age/aging headcanon

“No.”  
“Confound it, Thorin, we’ve been over this before.”  
“And the answer is still no.” 

To say that Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror, the restorer of Erebor’s glory and patriarch of the line of Durin passed over crown and title easily to his heir when the time came was....well, it was the most ludicrously-conceived of fantasies. The Kings Under the Mountain had a tendency to reign for many years, and bore the same tenacity in their gray and grizzled years that they had in their prime. Tenacious, but wise - when not touched by madness for gold.

That was all well and good, Bilbo supposed, only he had learned long ago that Thorin took ‘tenacity’ far over and away into the realm of ‘sheer pigheaded stubbornness.’ 

“Get off the throne, Thorin,” he tried again, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Up on the raised dais of the throne, Thorin harrumphed and settled more thoroughly into his mass of furs. Behind him, Bilbo heard Fíli - older, wiser, calmer, and now the rightful King - sigh heavily, followed by a sudden coughing fit from Kíli that had to be covering a laugh. Some things really never changed. 

“Give your nephew a turn,” he coaxed. “And don’t pretend like that seat doesn’t hurt your back, I know it does.” 

Thorin glowered at him, and no, some things never changed at all, even when his hair was now more white-touched silver than jet, the lines around his eyes a little deeper. 

“Fíli is the King now,” Bilbo pointed out, patience rapidly wearing thin. His knees were starting to ache - while his own chambers in Erebor were done up quite warm and cozy, walking the stone halls for too long tended to cause later aches and pains in his ankles and knees. One morning he’d been in for quite a shock when he rose and had his customary yawn-and-stretch only to hear practically every joint in his body go off like one of Gandalf’s firecrackers.

In response, Thorin grumbled something that Bilbo couldn’t quite hear - he was still sharp as a tack, mind you, but maybe a little hard of hearing now - and that was it, that was really it, Bilbo had been putting up with this for too long. 

Quick as he could he hopped up the steps to the throne and, brandishing his cane high, he leaped - old knees still good for something - and his the hidden catch that held the Arkenstone in place above the throne. Before Thorin could even blink or bellow he had the glowing stone in hand and was shuffling, down down down the steps and the corridor, as fast as his legs could carry him. Kíli was not even attempting to mask his laughter as Thorin leapt from the throne and started after him - but it was too late, Bilbo had pushed the King’s Gem into Fíli’s hands and now that the throne was vacant, the new King wasted no time in reclaiming his spot. 

“There now,” Bilbo said, from the other end of the hall. “Everything is in its proper place and as it should be.” 

“I could still throw you from the ramparts, you know,” Thorin said brow furrowed as he walked slowly to catch up to the Hobbit. 

“We both know if you tried lifting me now you'd crack your spine - oh, do stop looking at me like that,” said Bilbo, switching his cane to his other hand so he could touch Thorin’s arm. “Come now, old friend. The kitchens should have delivered second breakfast by now.” 

“I hope,” Thorin said some time later, as the old friends ate second breakfast on one of the viewing platforms overlooking the valley of Dale, “that they do not think me a doddering old fool.” He did not look at Bilbo while he said this, and instead focused resolutely on his slice of toast.

Even after all these years, Bilbo could still managed to be surprised by Thorin. Things never did change, after all. He reached over and patted Thorin’s hand, spotted here and there with marks of age. His own hand was arthritic, gnarled. “I have always thought you a fool,” he said fondly. “Especially when you’re chasing the cares of ruling when you should be relaxing in your retirement.”

“Growing fat in my dotage,” Thorin said dryly. He squeezed Bilbo’s hand and there was no lingering darkness or resentment in his eyes, only warmth and gratitude. They returned to second-breakfasting. 

“And anyway,” Bilbo said innocently, waiting until Thorin’s mouth was full of eggs and fresh Dale-grown tomatoes, “you needn’t worry yourself with matters of the throne until Kíli sits upon it.”


	3. Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confound these stupid courtship customs!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly headcanon and not so much fic buT I'M POSTIN' IT ANYWAY!

For all their cultural differences, Hobbits and Dwarves shared many similarities in the customs of courting. There were, however, a few glaring differences. Just when Bilbo thought he was getting the hang of it, like a tricky sort of knitting stitch, he’d end up wrong-footed and have no idea where to pick up what he’d fumbled and dropped.

This came to a head the day Bilbo found Thorin loading up gear, as if for a long and arduous journey, onto his swiftest, sturdiest mounts. The sword that hung at his side was not Orcrist but far lighter, a light curve to its blade though it had the heft of a true Dwarven craft. He was off, Thorin proclaimed, to the forests to track, hunt, and fell the largest beast of the forest that he could find - and with winter approaching, the wolves would be coming down from the thick of the wilds to worry Dale’s farmers and shepherds. As a token of courtship and proof that he could provide and protect his intended, Thorin should seek to kill the most ferocious wolf of the pack, and to lay its pelt at Bilbo’s feet.

What he did not count on was Bilbo’s obstinate refusal to entertain the notion of sleeping with some poor wolf’s skin on top of him, and in the ensuing argument Thorin demanded an explanation of Hobbit courtship so that he may know what to to.

It was all very elaborate and needless, Bilbo explained - poems and songs, if the courter was musical, going on about the matchless beauty of each hair on their beloved’s foot. Then there were the gifts, starting with small tokens of affection leading up to larger, more elaborate offerings to prove they could provide. - “And don’t even think about it, the mithril was more than enough,” he said sharply, when a considering look passed across Thorin’s face. But mostly it was the little things, the pure things, everyday things filled with quiet meaning between the two lovers. “If it were me courting you,” Bilbo said, hands in his waistcoat pockets, “I’d let you win at conkers, to start.”

Which is how, in short, the game of conkers made its debut in Dwarven culture, and to this day no dwarf would dream of putting forth their serious intentions to their beloved without first giving them the choicest of horse chestnuts to win what would eventually be called the Consort’s Game.


End file.
